"Who cooked up the peanut butter and jelly sandwich?" was the message that came to this website in an e-mail from Coffeyville, Kansas.

Normally these pages are concerned with recipes that seem a bit more involved than opening two jars and spreading their contents between two slices of bread.  However, upon reflection I realized that, although it seems that the PB &J sandwich has been around forever, it was probably created within the lifetime of our senior citizens.

At the start of the twentieth century fruit jelly was made at home from scratch, poured into sterilized jars, and covered with a layer of hot paraffin wax to preserve it.  A fortunate child might have a homemade slice of bread with butter and jelly as an after-school treat.  However, by 1923 the Welch's Grape Juice Company was selling grape jelly in jars in grocery stores.  Within a few years the bread slicer was invented and by the 1930's many children could reach for the jelly jar and spread a slice of bread with butter and jelly.

Although peanut butter had been around since the 1890's, and was introduced at the St. Louis Fair in 1904, it was at first thought of as a health food, having been developed by a St Louis physician as a source of protein for his adult patients.  The doctor used a meat grinder to make a paste out of peanuts, but he had a friend named George A. Bayle, Jr., who mechanized the process and sold peanut butter out of barrels for six cents a pound.

Meanwhile, another physician, Dr. John Kellogg, also thought of peanuts as a health food, and began experimenting with peanut butter (as well as corn flakes) in his laboratory in Battle Creek, Michigan.  There's a story that when one of Dr. Kellogg's assistants was reprimanded for roasting peanuts on the job, he went home and smashed the peanuts in anger.  When he tasted the result, so the story goes, he went back to the boss and told him how good it was, and thereby interested Dr.Kellogg in developing peanut butter.

Nevertheless, peanut butter at that time was only produced locally because of the difficulty in keeping the oil from separating and becoming rancid.  Some people complained, saying "It sticks to the roof of your mouth."  It took many years for a process to evolve the smooth "stickless" peanut butter we know today and for it to become available nationwide.   By the time of World War II when meat and butter were scarce and food was rationed, it was in the nation's interest to develop and promote peanut butter as a convenient source of protein not only for soldiers at the war front, but also for families on what was called "the home front."

Soon after the war ended in 1945, with veterans remembering peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in their rations and children having become accustomed to finding peanut butter on the pantry shelf, bread was rarely spread with butter and jelly, but rather with peanut butter and jelly.

When I e-mailed a reply to Clinton Walker, the young man who had sent the question about the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, he sent word he'd found a new way to enjoy his favorite snack --a sandwich made with peanut butter and marshmallow Fluff.

For other variations you might consider combining peanut butter and apples, peanut butter and bananas or peanut butter and avocadoes or even tomatoes.  None will probably surpass the classic peanut butter and jelly in our time, but  the following links might appeal to you for variety.

 Who Cooked That Up? is copyrighted 1999 by J.J. Schnebel
Revised February 2002, Revised September 2005
all rights reserved for your pleasure and enlightenment

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